Coming of Age
by xoxcrescentmoonxox
Summary: "The brisk air pushed her towards Fred; every inch of her body wanted to press against every inch of his because this boy was lava in the Arctic, oozing through her pores and lighting her insides on fire." For Fred and Angelina, the Yule Ball doesn't end on the dance floor. Strong T rating.


**For the Canon Pairings Competition at HPFC. Prompts used: you get what you gave, lovers leave me alone, morning. **

**I waffled a lot on the rating. I'm going with T for now, but be warned that it's a strong T (themes of drinking and sex). If you think I should bump it up to M, please do PM me!**

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Angelina followed Fred out of the ballroom, her hand caught in his, her dress slinking around her ankles, her face sweaty from dancing. They laughed as they ran, "Did you see Flitwick cutting it up in there? Didn't know the chap had it in him." ("Flitwick? No, I couldn't see him around Hagrid! Talk about an enthusiastic dancer.")

As the Yule Ball wound down, George had slipped through the last dancers to whisper to Fred and Angelina that Lee Jordan had a handle of vodka and was waiting by the lake. Angelina and Fred had drawn back to look at each other—newly of age, neither had much experience with drink stronger than butterbeer. But Angelina trusted Fred as her friend and teammate and, besides all that, was too exhilarated from dancing to call it a night.

Now, approaching the lake, Angelina could hear the shouts of a few friends. She and Fred slowed down, walking beside each other, their hands still interlaced.

"Hey, what took you two so long?" hooted Lee. Katie Bell, who had been his date, cocked an eyebrow at Angelina, a more subtle query. Angelina blushed because Fred Weasley had been the most handsome man at the ball that night and maybe she hoped a little that the teasing could come true, maybe she knew she was beautiful and Fred was into her and it would come true if she wanted it to.

To Lee, however, she deadpanned "Someone had to be the last pair dancing." Fred grinned at her and lifted the hand that still held hers, twirling her. She laughed, falling into him a little; the two then found their way to a seat on a sofa that looked suspiciously like those found in the reception area of the hospital wing—various other pieces of furniture were arranged in a semicircle around the lake; about a dozen of the twins' friends lounged there, passing around the vodka.

"Veela-brewed," Angelina read from the label as it made her way to her. She grinned. "My, aren't we fancy tonight?"

"Ange, you shoulda seen me charm it off of Madame Rosemarta." George winked at her. "Let's just say, if she didn't have a thing for gingers before, she does now."

"He means a thing against them," snickered Fred. "When the old Weasley charm didn't work, he tried an actual charm that involved exploding tubs of cream, levitation, and a little smoke."

"Hey, it worked, didn't it?" protested George.

Angelina tipped her head back and took a gulp from the bottle. The alcohol burned her throat and she choked, coughing and laughing at the same time. "What in Merlin's name is this stuff?" she gasped once she was able to talk again. "This is awful." Her mouth tasted sour, but warmth spread down to her chest. She passed the bottle to Fred.

"It's all about being dainty," he said, affecting a posh accent. "Sip slowly—"

"—And don't forget to stick out your pinky," mocked Angelina. "Any day, Weasley." With that first taste past her lips, she felt fearless.

Fred shot her a dirty look and drank. He too coughed a little as it went down. "Merlin, George, you could've picked something that didn't taste like Auntie Muriel's mouthwash."

"You would know, wouldn't you?"

The bottle continued around the circle, but Angelina leaned back to see the sky. It was one of the warmer nights of December, and the vodka had warmed her still more, but she still drew her wrap tighter around herself. Above, the sky was clear and the stars huge; around, the last lights from Durmstrang's ship spilled across the lake and still more light shone from the windows of the castle. Her friends' voices spiked with laughter, grew quieter, then spiked again. Fred's robe-clad arm brushed her own and stayed there. She leaned into him a little. He leaned back.

Turning back from the sky to the circle, Angelina took the nearly-empty bottle as it made its way back to her.

"Finish it, Johnson!" whooped Lee. He and Katie were piled on each other; her cheeks were bright red as she laughed, echoing "Finish it!"

"Cheers, then!" Angelina raised the bottle to an invisible person in the sky and tipped it to her lips, taking a smaller sip this time. She swallowed quickly and took another.

"You gonna share that last bit?" Fred suggested.

She grinned. "Hey, Alicia…"

"Oy! You know what I meant."

Their eyes met. "All right then," she said. She remembered saying that same sentence a few weeks ago when Fred had asked her to the ball. Then, she'd blushed a little and acted like it wasn't a big deal. Now, confident and a little bit tipsy—confident perhaps because she was a little bit tipsy—she put the bottle to Fred's lips and held it there—"Ready? Because this could go very badly if you're not."

With his hand, he signaled to her to go ahead, his lips spreading into a smile suppressed by the bottle. Angelina tipped back the vodka; he drank some, and the rest dripped down his robes. A sputtering Fred protested "I'm getting even for that!"

Angelina squirmed out of his reach, standing up. On her feet, she felt drunk for the first time; her head spun a little. "That's some powerful stuff you got, George," she said, then giggled.

"Come back here, I'm not done getting even!"

She looked back at Fred, who had sprawled across the sofa to reach for her. His hands dangled just out of reach of her robes. "Okay," she said, and sat back down, her back against his stomach. She leaned backwards, squashing him into the cushions.

"Oy!" He tickled her; she squirmed away, sliding off of the couch to sprawl on the ground. Fred's face peeped over the edge of the sofa; she pulled on his shoulders and tipped him off. He landed on top of her and rolled a few feet away, much to Lee and George's amusement.

"Rude," he muttered, rolling back so that he lay beside her.

"You get what you gave," she replied with a grin. "And you did not give me a safe and secure place on this very nice sofa." She ran her hand along the design, stars and planets. Laid her cheek against it. The soft fabric whispered into her ear; she allowed her head to loll backwards as again she scrutinized the sky. Fred writhed beneath her, repositioning so that he curled around her, hugging her hips. Angelina absently reached down to stroke his hair. It felt surprisingly soft, a little damp with sweat at the roots from their exuberant dancing. He began to run his hands over her dress, moving from her waist to the top of her thigh. Instinctively, Angelina shifted into his touch.

"Well, I'm out," said George. The interruption cut into Angelina's trance, ending the moment where she saw only stars and felt only Fred. At this point, the only people left were George, Lee and Katie, and Fred and herself—Alicia and her Ravenclaw date had returned to the castle before the vodka had gone; George's date, Leanne, had followed. Neither Lee nor Katie was good company as they'd been all over each other for most of the night; Lee was handsy and charming even when sober, and Katie, though quieter, could nevertheless hold her own on both counts.

"'Night!" they called after George.

When his twin had gotten a bit of a head start, Fred opened his eyes and twisted to look at Angelina. She returned his stare.

"Something on your mind?"

"Want to go somewhere a little warmer?"

She raised her eyebrows, grinning in spite of herself. "Okay." Looking to Katie and Lee, "Think they'll be alright?"

Fred craned his neck to see. Laughing, "More than."

Angelina stood, shivering again in the winter air. She huffed out a slow breath, watched the air puff in front of her lips like a dragon. Fred stood beside her, exhaled his own dragon-breath. She smiled. Turned to face him, exhaled again, still more gently. He replied in like and she moved closer. Her forehead against his, they stood and swayed in the night.

They kissed. First a fumbling kiss, a question, and she wasn't sure if her lips had gone to his or if his had gone to hers, but suddenly they had pressed together, and he tasted a little bit salty so she drew back, went in for a second kiss, harder this time, figuring him out.

Her hands tangled back into his hair and they pulled apart, catching eyes and giggling cautiously.

"Well, that settles that," said Fred. "Someplace warmer now?"

They hiked back in the direction of the castle, tripping over the stones on the path, falling into each other, breathless, and his hand caught hers and they stopped to kiss more, lights of the castle twinkling down. The brisk air pushed her towards Fred; every inch of her body wanted to press against every inch of his because this boy was lava in the Arctic, oozing through her pores and lighting her insides on fire. She felt him on her lips and she felt him in her hips, so she pulled away and said "I'm still waiting for the warm."

He just looked at her for a second, head cocked to one side, pieces of his hair sticking straight up ("It's a good look for you," said Angelina, and ruffled it with her hand a little more).

"I'm going to take you somewhere you've never been before," he said. And Angelina really and truly thought it was a terrible pickup line; she snorted and kept snickering until they entered the castle and took a side-route away from Gryffindor Tower, at which point she understood that he'd meant it literally, and on second thought wasn't surprised, what with the secret passages the twins were forever popping out of; she just hoped they weren't going somewhere dark with spiders dangling from the ceiling.

"Ah," said Fred. They'd climbed several flights of stairs and were standing in a deserted corridor. She looked at him. He looked back at her: "Follow me." He started down the corridor. Once he'd made if halfway down, he abruptly changed directions. "Nope, this way." They bumped into each other and he planted a kiss on her as she spun around.

"Oops, wrong again." He turned again and she followed, but at the same point again he turned: "My my, I'm a little directionally challenged tonight."

"What in Merlin's name…" Fred was walking towards a dead end; there was only a window and the staircase they'd come up. Angelina felt less tipsy now, and worried that someone, probably Filch, would be patrolling the corridors with a vengeance, waiting to catch students out of bed.

"Ange, don't you trust me?" He stood at the other end, turned around again, looking at her with a disparaging, exaggeratedly sweet look on his face.

""Don't mind me," she said. "I'm just waiting for you to orient yourself."

Fred nodded. "Fair enough." He took a few big strides forward. As he did so, a door opened up on the wall beside him, the same sort of door that led to the dormitories in Gryffindor Tower. Angelina gasped.

"Ah." Fred smirked. "That'd be what I was looking for."

"How—?"

"I'll tell you another time."

He offered his hand and, when she took it, twirled her again. Laughing, they opened the door.

"What the—" Fred murmured as they entered. The room was small, the size of Angelina's bedroom at home, and filled with pillows and cushions; dim candles hovered just above their heads, casting soft shadows everywhere.

"This is nice," said Angelina.

"I was expecting a broom closet!" Fred exclaimed. "That's what George and I found the other time we were here, hiding from Filch."

She trapped his hand in hers, leaned her forehead into his. "You were planning on bringing me to a broom closet?"

"Well…" Fred harrumphed. "A very private broom closet." He glanced around the room. "I have got to tell George about this."

Angelina raised her eyebrow. "Don't talk. You're ruining the mood."

"—later," Fred added hastily. "I have got to tell George about this later."

Angelina coughed disapprovingly.

"I mean the room. I have got to tell George about the room and only the room later." He rested his forehead against hers again, drew one hand up to stroke the back of her neck. "Better?"

"Better."

One by one, Fred pulled out the sparkly clips that had kept her updo in place. "I like the way your hair feels," he said, twining the black strands between his fingers.

"I like the way that feels," she said softly.

They were both sitting now, him behind her, his hands stroking her hair, her neck, the tops of her arms. "I like the way you feel," said Fred.

Angelina leaned into his caress. He kissed the back of her neck, then moved down to her shoulders. She twisted to reciprocate. Her hands traced the lines of his chest and rested on the buttons of his robe. First she played with the buttons, and then, as the kiss grew deeper, she fumbled to undo them; too much fabric separated Fred from her; her dress robes showed all kinds of skin, whereas his left everything to the imagination.

He stopped kissing her and watched her unbutton them, a smile hinting its way across his face. This wasn't the typical, mirth-filled grin of the Weasley twins, but something much more tender.

"Got it," she muttered, finally able to pull the dress robes from his shoulders. "They should do something about that clasp. Make it easy access or something."

"I don't know, you seem to have done pretty well with it," chuckled Fred.

Angelina swatted at his bare chest.

"Hey, I'm not complaining!" he protested, and caught her hands in his own, drawing them back against him. Angelina took in Fred's torso, dotted everywhere with freckles, pale from winter, muscular from Quidditch.

"What do you think?" he asked.

She kissed his lips, then his ear, then his neck, his shoulders, his chest. "That's what I think."

Fred cupped her face in his hands. "I agree." They kissed more, lying against the cushions and his crumpled dress robes. His hand wandered down to skim across her breasts. Surprised, Angelina drew back.

"Sorry," muttered Fred. He returned his hands to her cheeks.

"No, stay," whispered Angelina. She placed one of his hands on her breast, the other at the clasp of her robes.

"Really?"

"Really."

They knelt and he undressed her. The buttons on her robes proved much more problematic than those on his, but with some maneuvering, her robes lay puddled around her and the two, underwear-clad, looked at each other. The candles dimmed slightly; it was so subtle that Angelina couldn't have told if it had been her imagination, but that Fred had noticed too.

"Well, this is new," said Fred. He smiled again, this time closer to the trademark Weasley-twin grin, as his eyes raked up and down her body. "I like this."

"My eyes are up here," joked Angelina.

"I know." Fred kissed her. "But I've had quite a lot of time to look at your eyes."

She attacked him with a kiss that sent them back into the cushions. They tangled around each other, exploring. She traced lines across his back, words that said "you" and designs that maybe could have been a broomstick, maybe just wanted to make Fred feel good, maybe just occupied her hands because he had moved down her body to kiss her stomach and her sides, teasing her by moving down still more towards her hips and coming back up, and she felt him all over her body and she wanted him so much, wanted to keep feeling this good, to feel better. So she ran her fingers through his hair, stroking softly then tugging, enjoying the contrast of her dark skin against his pale face, his ginger hair. They pressed against each other more, swapping places so she could have her turn exploring him, learning the contours of his stomach and the way he gasped as her tongue swirled around his nipples: "Who taught you that?" She moved to work on the other one; he breathed out slow, "Never mind, I don't want to know."

Her bra came off next. The candles hovered lower, drifting a couple feet above their heads, as Fred and Angelina continued to slide across each other's bodies. When he kissed her navel, her hips moved towards him; when he slipped a hand down the waistband of her underwear, her body said _yes_ as her instincts said _no_. Her mouth said _not yet_, first only forming the outlines of the words because of how much she wanted to feel Fred Weasley all over her body, but on the second go the words came out, "Not yet, Fred," and he looked a little disappointed but drew his hand back up, and their foreheads rested together so she could tell him "Next time" with an impish grin on her face, a grin that he promptly kissed.

"Next time," he repeated, holding her. "I like the sounds of that."

They cuddled and kissed and dozed, rocked in each other's arms, and held each other tight until that morning. When Fred finally moved to check his wristwatch, it was nearly ten. The candles had moved back to the ceiling and grown bright, the illusion of sun streaming in, Angelina assumed. She and Fred pulled on last night's clothes reluctantly and held hands with all kinds of Gryffindor pride as they walked through the castle to return to their dormitory, leaving the candles still burning, the room waiting for next time.


End file.
